Word: niles
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...RAPE OF THE NILE...
...reliefs that were on the wall of Pharaoh Amun-Hotpe's tomb. To save himself hours in the hot, stuffy tomb, he chiseled off the bas-reliefs and took them to his boat. When he had finished his sketches, he simply dropped the priceless stones into the Nile...
...looting and destruction of Egyptian temples continued down through the centuries. Early Christians, anxious to eliminate residual paganism along the Nile, smashed many monuments. Medieval Europeans created a brisk market for mummy, the bituminous substance used in mummification, which was thought to have a medicinal value...
...Eonile, or original Nile, coursed through Egypt between 5.58 and 5.4 million years ago. Rising near Egypt's present southern frontier and fed by heavy rains, this prehistoric river cut a deep channel as it dropped to the Mediterranean, which was dry at that time and closed off at its western, or Gibraltar end. When Gibraltar opened up once more, possibly as a result of earthquakes, water from the Atlantic poured into the Mediterranean, flooding as far into Egypt as Aswan and covering the entire Nile Valley. For 2 million years the valley was a gulf of the Mediterranean...
...Paleonile, or second Nile, followed, emerging around 3.3 million years ago. The biggest and longest-lived of the five rivers, the Paleonile probably rose in the western Sudan after a prolonged rainy period, filling the Nile Valley with silt that eventually pushed the Mediterranean back out of Egypt. Then, around 1.8 million years ago, a 1-million-year drought dried up the Paleonile, gave birth to the Sahara and turned much of Egypt into a desert that Said says must have resembled the arid "Empty Quarter" of Saudi Arabia...